


Stranded

by Cdelphiki



Series: Whumptober 2018 [8]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, DCU, Red Robin (Comics), Robin: Son of Batman (Comics)
Genre: Adopted Sibling Relationship, Airplane Crashes, Angst, Brotherly Bonding, Crash Landing, Explicit Language, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Prompt Fill, Stranded, Whumptober 2018
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-09
Updated: 2018-10-09
Packaged: 2019-07-28 12:34:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16241714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cdelphiki/pseuds/Cdelphiki
Summary: While flying out to see the rest of the family, Tim and Damian's plane crashes and they find themselves stranded in the middle of nowhere.Whumptober 2018Day 9: Stranded





	Stranded

Travelling wasn’t something Damian particularly enjoyed. Sitting on a plane for hours was painfully dull, even if he had internet access and thousands of movies to choose from, Damian was always pretty damn bored while flying.

It didn’t help one bit that he was trapped on Father’s private jet with _Drake_ of all people. 

When Damian had suggested Drake fly commercial so they wouldn’t have to share the cabin, his father had responded with ‘ _Do you want to be grounded?_ ’ and apparently that was end of discussion.

Whatever. 

They were sitting on opposite ends of the cabin, Damian facing forward and Tim somewhere behind him, facing backward to watch the television on the back wall, mostly so they didn’t have to even look at each other.

If they got into a fight while on the plane, Father said they’d have to start sharing a bedroom. Something about not subjecting the poor pilot to such a thing, so apart they sat, completely ignoring each other the entire flight, Damian, for one, dreading the landing. 

They were flying to Tokyo to meet up with Father, Grayson, and Pennyworth for a WE function mixed with ‘family vacation.’  He and Tim had to stay behind to finish out the last bit of school and were joining them a few days late.  Damian was not looking forward to whatever ‘family vacation’ meant, because it surely meant a week of forced, awkward, family bonding. 

Fantastic.

It was three hours into their 14 hour flight from New Jersey when Damian looked out the window and noticed something that struck him as odd.  It took several, long seconds of contemplation to figure out what it was, but as soon as he did, he turned around to look at Drake.

They were flying too low to the ground. At first it had seemed just a tad too low, but they kept descending, as if they were landing.

“Drake,” he said, trying not to let the bafflement in his voice show, “why are we landing so early? 

The teen looked over and raised an eyebrow. “He didn’t warn we were landing…” he said after he got up to look out Damian’s window, then his eyes went wide. “Shit.  Fuck, okay,” he said quickly, running toward the cockpit.

Damian scowled and looked back out the window, then leaned over so he could look directly in front of them.  Then he saw what Tim had seen.  They weren’t landing at an airport.  They were landing in a forest.  Or, more accurately, crashing in a forest.

Damian watched in horror as the teenager attempted to open the door and enter the cockpit.  They clearly had twenty seconds, max.  What was he going to do?  Steer the plane?  “Drake,” Damian hissed as he began buckling his seatbelt, “Drake, you imbecile, sit down.” 

Ten seconds, Damian thought as he shouted one last time, “Tim!  Strap yourself in!” Instead of listen, though, the teen continued trying to open the cockpit.  Damian looked back out the window and noticed the trees were almost level with the plane. 

He leaned forward and braced himself the way the safety cards all suggested, and just hoped that Drake could magically save the plane.

\----

Damian woke up still strapped into his seat in the smoldering wreckage of the plane. 

Numbly, he unbuckled his belt and stumbled to his feet.  “Drake?” he said, looking around at the destruction around them.  Dozens of trees were down, at least.  If not a hundred, from the crash.  Right in front of him was the cockpit, now nicely opened for him, thanks to the missing side of the plane. 

Tim, however, was no where to be seen. 

“Drake,” he called again, a bit louder, forcing the panic he felt bubbling up down.  He was an Al Ghul.  No, he was a Wayne.  Son of Batman.  He did not _panic_.

He would find his moronic older brother.

Damian walked up to the cockpit first, hoping that maybe the idiot had strapped himself into one of the chairs there.  But, of course, no such luck.  Instead, Damian found the deceased pilot.  Initial checks suggest that the pilot might have been several hours dead, perhaps being the reason for their premature landing.  

Interesting.  Damian would have to do a bit more detective-ing after he found Tim. 

While searching around the main wreckage, Damian kept his eyes out for anything that would be helpful to them.  What he really wanted was a phone, but of course he’d had his phone sitting out on the table, and there was no telling where that was now.  Because this was a civilian trip, he had no comm on him at all. 

No way to contact Father.

“Drake,” Damian repeated for probably the fiftieth time.  As he began making his way further away from the wreckage, he stumbled across a first aid kit, perfectly intact.  Considering Drake had clearly been thrown somewhere away from the plane, he figured he’d need it, so Damian slung it over his shoulder and continued walking.

Damian knew his father was alerted the exact moment the plane crashed, but considering the man was all the way in Tokyo, it would likely take a while for him to come to their rescue. 

“Dammit, Drake, where the hell are you?” Damian shouted after he’d been searching for nearly an hour. Surely the teen’s body was _somewhere._

Then Damian saw it, the brief flash of sunlight reflecting off a watch. 

“Tim!” Damian shouted, running now the twenty yards to where the teenager was laying on his back, mostly unconscious, “Drake, wake up.” 

A quick check of his pulse revealed the guy was still alive, much to Damian’s relief.  And it wasn’t until that moment he realized how absolutely afraid he’d been that Tim was dead.  Since when had he cared so much? 

Shaking his head to clear that thought, deciding he could unpack it later, Damian started pulling out the first aid supplies.

Drake was in bad shape. He’d been thrown a good fifty yards from the plane, and Damian had no idea how the actual landing had taken place. So for all he knew, Drake slammed right into trees himself.  

The teen’s entire body was covered in scrapes from where he’d clearly skidded across the forest vegetation.  There were a couple burn marks on his arms, and several clearly broken bones. 

There was no way his brother could walk, and with no reliable way to check for spinal damage, moving was a bad idea, too.

Damian began probing at Drake’s body to do a full assessment.  He cleaned and bandaged a few of the bleeding cuts, and started feeling all of his brother’s bones, writing down on the injury report in the kit which bones were broken.  Left radius fractured.  Left tibia. Three ribs.  Several fingers. 

Tim was going to have one hell of a recovery period.

While Damian was feeling along Tim’s right arm, the teenager came to, just a little.

“Hrn. ’mian?” he groaned, blinking up at the child, “wha’re you doin’?”

“Injury assessment,” Damian responded sharply.

His tone caused Tim to flinch a bit, then moan from the pain.  “Wha’ happen?”

“Do you not remember?”

“I ‘member...” Tim trailed off, blinking slowly. “Crash.  Ow.” 

“Yes. We crashed," Damian said, rolling his eyes, "and you’ve broken pretty much one of everything. Hope you’re happy.”

“Heads’not broken,” Tim protested with a toothy grin, which just showed the blood in the teenager’s mouth.

Damian grimaced at the look and said, “Well, that was already broken. Why did you leave your seat when you realized we were crashing?  The proper safety procedure is to remain fastened in your seat and to protect your head.”

Tim tried to sit up, to Damian’s immediate protests.  When the teenager realized he couldn’t push Damian off him, he gave up and relaxed back into the grass.  “Was tryin’ to stop from crashing.”

The child scowled at the pure stupidity of his brother.  The absolute lack of respect for his own life.  The lack of self-preservation.  “You didn’t have time, you imbecile.”

“Had to try.”

“You could have killed yourself,” Damian shot back with more venom in his voice than he intended, but he was angry. Angry because… “I thought you _had_ killed yourself,” Damian admitted more calmly.   

“Like you even care,” Tim snapped, returning Damian’s scowl right back at him. 

They stared at each other for a long moment before Damian stood dramatically and stormed off.

Stupid dumb Drake, Damian thought as he stomped around the forest.  He wasn’t even sure what he was looking for, he just knew he couldn’t stay near Drake.  Because of course he didn’t care.  Why would he care?  Why would he be so afraid the teen had been killed?

Because.

Because Tim was his brother. His stupid, annoying, arrogant, asshole older brother.

And if Tim weren’t in the family anymore, Damian really wasn’t sure what they’d do.  What he’d do if he didn’t have someone to torment. 

He shouldn’t have said anything.  Maybe had he kept his mouth shut about them landing, Tim would have stayed seated and he’d be fine. 

Damian scrubbed at his eyes and glared angrily at the trees around him, hating every last one of them for making him be in this situation.  As he was glaring, though, he noticed an apple tree and quickly scaled the branches to pick a few ripe apples.

He was so glad it was September.  Fresh apples straight from the tree were one of his favorite things.

 

When Damian finally wandered back to where Tim was resting, he’d been gone and hour and collected half a dozen apples, an entire hoody pocket full of blackberries, and a couple of water bottles from the plane wreckage. 

“Don’t sit up,” Damian commanded coldly as he handed a bottle of water to Drake, “I poked a hole in the lid with my knife so you can drink it that way.”

“Whatever,” Tim mumbled as he sprayed a little water into his mouth. 

They sat in silence for several minutes, each of them occasionally eating a berry or drinking some water, before Damian finally broke the silence.

“Superman!” he shouted at the top of his lungs, causing Tim to jump in surprise.

“What’re you doing?” the teen demanded, moaning at the pain he’d caused himself.

“Tt,” Damian huffed. It was obvious what he was doing, asking was stupid. “Calling for help.  You are pathetic and require medical attention.  Superman!”

“He’s off world,” Drake grumbled, shifting slightly where he was lying. 

Damian pursed his lips and sank down in a pout.  “He’s never on world when we need him.”

 

As the late morning turned into afternoon, the air began to chill slightly.  It was strange.  Usually the warmest part of the day was early afternoon, but it was certainly dipping down into the lower 50s. 

Damian was fine in his hoody, which had been too much for the plane, but not something Damian wanted to take off.  He liked his hood too much.  Tim, however, was just wearing a short sleeve polo shirt and pair of slacks.  It didn’t occur to Damian that he’d be cold until the teen shivered.

“I’ll be back,” Damian said, standing up to head back to the wreckage to try and locate Drake’s coat or something. Instead, he found a bin of blankets in the cabin largely undamaged and brought them back for Tim. 

“What are you doing?” Tim asked warily as Damian draped a blanket over Tim and began tucking it in under his arms and legs gently, being incredibly careful not to jostle his spine in any way or cause him pain in his fractures.  Damian already felt bad he couldn’t do much but make sure Tim didn’t move, the least he could do was make sure he didn’t add to his pain.

“You are not so out of it that you don’t recognize a blanket being put over you,” Damian replied dryly. 

“Right,” Tim said, narrowing his eyes, suspicious of Damian, “but why are you putting it over me?”  

Damian wanted to scream. Why was it so fucking unbelievable that Damian could take care of Tim?  He was hurt, for heaven sake.  Of course Damian was going to take care of him, just like Tim would do for Damian.  “You were cold,” Damian snapped, “did you want to keep freezing or would you rather have a couple blankets on you?”

Tim stared at Damian for a while longer, clearly thinking carefully about his words, questioning every one of Damian’s motives.  Finally, he reluctantly said, “I want the blankets.  Thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” Damian said curtly, wrapping another blanket around himself, “if you need more just tell me.  There were a bunch in the bin.”

 

“Why isn’t father here yet?” Damian demanded angrily as the sun began to set.  Damian hadn’t really set up camp for them.  He’d draped a blanket over a branch and weighted it down with rocks on either side of him and Tim, mostly just to cut the wind that was whipping through the forest, but it wasn’t a water proof shelter.  Or really very protective at all. 

Father needed to show up soon, or they’d have a pretty miserable night as it likely dipped down close to freezing.

“He’s in Tokyo, Damian,” Tim drawled, “It takes a while to fly from there to the Canadian wilderness.”

Damian threw himself backward onto the ground to pout up at the sky. “How do you know we’re in Canada?”

“Based it on how early the sun is setting mixed with the type of trees surrounding us.  We’re further north than any of the United States, other than Alaska, obviously.  But we weren’t in the sky long enough to be out in Alaska.”

With a huff, Damian crossed his arms and glared harder at the bright orange clouds, which were quickly darkening as the sun continued its descent in the sky.  “He can just zeta to Gotham and take the batwing, he really doesn’t need to fly commercial.”

“Secret identities,” Tim said simply, but Damian got it. 

Bruce Wayne couldn’t fly out to Tokyo and then just suddenly appear in Canada where his boys had crashed. And if it had made it to the press that their plane had crashed, Father was likely dealing with the press in his civilian identity. They might actualy be relying on a traditional search and rescue team.  That kind of scared Damian.

“Fuck secret identities,” he mumbled, “you’re hurt.” 

“Damian,” Tim sighed, “he can’t just expose us all because we don’t want to have an uncomfortable night outside.  If he did that, everything would be over.  No more Batman.  No more Robin.”

“And you don’t think you’re more important than that,” Damian observed darkly.  He was tired of Tim’s practical desire to die. That’s what it was, when he decided to storm the cockpit instead of buckle in.  That’s what he was doing now, putting the idea of Batman above his own life. 

And yeah, sure, Damian would put Batman and their ideals above his own life, as well, but this was different. They weren’t out as Robins.  They weren’t saving the world or doing anything noble.  They were lying in a damn forest freezing to death in their civilian identities.  It was different.

Tim didn’t answer, but Damian hadn’t been expecting him to.  Instead, Damian just tossed another blanket over Tim, then wrapped himself up in one, burrito style, and lay down to take a nap. 

 

“Damian?” Tim asked as they were both staring up at the northern lights, many hours later.  They’d gotten numb to the cold, the blankets over them and the body warmers Damian had found in the first aid kid doing enough to keep their body temperatures up.

“What?” Damian asked flatly. They hadn’t really been speaking. Not at all. 

The teen let out a long, slow breath before finally asking, “Why’d you do all this?”

Damian scowled at the lights above them before lifting his blanket up over his face.  “Is it that hard to believe I do not wish you dead?”

“Well-” Tim began. But Damian could tell by the tone of voice what he was about to say, so he cut him off quickly.

“Whatever, Drake.  I don’t care.  I’m going to sleep, stop talking.”

“I don’t want you dead, either,” Damian heard Tim mumble a few minutes later, just as sleep was starting to take him.

 

Rescue finally came at dawn in the form of a SAR team.  Tim was airlifted out and Damian transported back by vehicle. 

As it turned out, the pilot had suffered a heart attack early on during the flight, likely turning the flight off course and sending them further north than what was on their itinerary. Thankfully, due to all the tracking done on airliners, the approximate location of the crash was found rather quickly and it took fewer than 24-hours to locate Tim and Damian. 

Back at the hospital in Winnipeg, Damian got to wait in Tim’s room for their father to arrive at the hospital. 

“I’m sorry, Damian” Tim said hoarsely an hour into their silence. 

Damian rolled his eyes and looked up from the book he’d been reading.  “What for?”

Tim frowned and said, “For scaring you back there.”

“You didn’t scare me,” Damian snapped, “I don’t get _scared.”_

“I didn’t realize you cared so much,” Tim continued, completely ignoring Damian’s retorts.

“Tt,” Damian huffed, returning his attention to his book, “I don’t care at all.”

“I’ll fasten my seatbelt next time. I swear.”

Damian pursed his lips and scowled at the page he wasn’t reading.  “You’d better,” he finally said. 

**Author's Note:**

> Have you ever read _Hatchet_? I read it in sixth grade, which was 15 years ago and that makes me feel so old. Anyway, this story was loosely based on the plot of _Hatchet_. Good book. I remember really liking it.
> 
>  
> 
> [Tumblr](https://cdelphiki.tumblr.com)


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